Since Lost wasn’t on last night, we got to pull our social life out of storage for a couple of hours in lieu of pouring over message boards and Wikipedia entries. But we should have known better than to assume we could get through the entire evening without finding something about the show to obsess over. Spoiler-happy femme fatale Kristin Dos Santos over at E! Online is reporting that (spoiler alert) a “major character” will die before the end of the season. (Cue: audible gasps!) Naturally, there are many stipulations: The series regular is described as “much-loved,” meaning we can probably rule out Jack; and, despite the rumors about Evangeline Lilly that circulated the Internets a few weeks ago, the departed won’t be Kate. So who will it be? If you’re averse to even thinking about spoilers, we suggest you stop reading right now. For the rest of you, here are our best guesses.
Hurley: While we doubt anyone would point to Hurley as his or her favorite character on Lost, we also don’t know one person who doesn’t like him. He’s Hurley! He’s the lovable, huggable and oversize window that we use to enter into the ridiculousness of the show. We’re pretty sure if Lost executive producers Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse decided to kill him off, they’d be met with pitchforks and torches outside their office. Probability: 13%
Ben: By any metric, Ben isn’t “much-loved.” Oh, we love him, but we imagine most fans think he’s an evil bastard who continually dupes people like Jack and Locke into doing whatever he says. Hence, why we love him. No matter your opinion on the man though, the simple fact remains that Ben is so interwoven into the fabric of the series, his removal would be deadly. Lost has made its bed with Ben, and now it has to lie in it. Probability: 29%
Sayid: We can definitely envision a scenario where Sayid will get killed off, if only because he really doesn’t have a whole lot to do with the narrative any more. After all, this is a character that spent a majority of time earlier in the season doing his “Bernie from Weekend at Bernie’s” impression. Naveen Andrews’ strong performance is always interesting, but on Lost he’s become mostly background fodder. If Sayid died, would anyone even notice? Probability: 51%
Desmond: While not one of the original castaways, Desmond feels like he’s been around since the beginning. And since he was pretty much written to be everyone’s favorite character ever, people love him like a core player. Here’s the thing though: Desmond already got his happy ending in season four—his reunion with Penny ended his Odysseus-like story line. Now he just feels extraneous, especially since the time traveling stopped. And if it’s revealed that Ben did indeed kill Penny like he had promised, then Desmond really has nothing to live for. Lest we forget, this is the same show that disposed of Charlie. Messrs. Lindelof and Cuse like to make fans cry like babies! We’ll have the Kleenex ready. Probability: 74%
